Wal-Mart closed down today to $47.63 per share, a drop of $0.44 or 0.92% from Monday's close. One of the larger announcements concerning our friends from Bentonville happened today as the Financial Times reported on its web site that Wal-Mart is about to enter the Chinese credit market by supplying customers in the world's most populous country with credit cards -- branded by Wal-Mart and issued by Shenzhen Development Bank of China.

With Wal-Mart recently exiting the South Korean market and underpinnings of leaving the German market seem to float around as well, Indian supercompany Reliance Industries, Ltd. announced that is was making a bold move into retail and would be flooding the country with Wal-Mart-style big box megastores.

This announcement comes at a precarious time for Wal-Mart, which has a decent international presence but continues to see bad press and gloomy competitive news in some of the larger non-U.S. markets where it operates. What will a move like this mean for Wal-Mart's Indian expansion plans? Stay tuned.